A "Martian Flower"! Curiosity Sol 132!

Originally posted by jeetp
Look likes a mineral formation rather than living plant

It is most likely halite, a crystalline mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride.

Scientists using a camera designed and operated at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility have discovered the first evidence for
deposits of chloride minerals - salts - in numerous places on Mars. These deposits, say the scientists, show where water was once abundant and may
also provide evidence for the existence of former Martian life.

Two sharp and regular bended edges (2), inside and outside the concavity, joining a flat surface (3) are distinguishable in the bottom part.

The flat surface seems to terminate at the beginning of a tapered part (4).

The reflectance is strongly nacreous, not glassylooking as if it’d be for a grain of quartz.

Three flakes mutually separated by compound fractures are recognizable on the upper part (5). It seems that flakes are held over the specimen through
an underlying matrix.

The appearance of the upper part of the specimen would seem to indicate a possible continuity between the part slightly emerging from the matrix and
the part well exposed so that an oval shape is conceivable (6).

The general appearance of the specimen is more similar to a shell than a grain of quartz or a grain of any known terrestrial mineral.

I'm not telling you what it is...I'm just asking you what do you think it may be...

Yes, ATS would be a good news source for things like this, I think it's the headline that grabbed attention. The Mars photos are all very interesting,
and to see bits and pieces of another planet talked about to this degree is fun no matter what the context. Inquisitive people no longer have to be
content with seeing/imagining giant Martian "faces", pyraminds, tunnels or the other things they used to see in overhead images. Now we can "go
close-up" and see the world in a grain of sand - only not our world.

Whatever it is, the longer I look at it the more it looks "organic" to me.

That "arc shape" I can't explain. That arc shape AND the luminosity/specular makes it entirely different from all the other structures in the
image.
Could it be like stalagmite/stalactite sort of "growth" as we have here in some caves?

The hosting rock looks like a conglomerate since pebbles are clearly visible. Its texture is completely different from the texture of a sandstone. The
depositional environment of an arenite is incompatible with the massive occurrence of large lithic fragments easily guessed from the picture.

More likely that layer has originated by the fossilization of an ancient reef located in the “intertidal” zone as the geomorphology of the whole
area (look at altimetry and the reflectance of the soils) and some other elements (for example a primary jagged hollowness in the mass) would seem to
indicate.

There are a lot of elements that let me incline for a biological origin.

Originally posted by Raffaele
The hosting rock looks like a conglomerate since pebbles are clearly visible.

True.

Its texture is completely different from the texture of a sandstone. The depositional environment of an arenite is incompatible with the
massive occurrence of large lithic fragments easily guessed from the picture.

True.

More likely that layer has originated by the fossilization of an ancient reef located in the “intertidal” zone as the geomorphology of the
whole area (look at altimetry and the reflectance of the soils) and some other elements (for example a primary jagged hollowness in the mass) would
seem to indicate.

Probably something like that, as scientists think this was a lake in ancient times.

There are a lot of elements that let me incline for a biological origin.

That's the only thing with which I do not agree, I don't see anything that makes me think of a biological origin instead of a geologic origin,
neither in shape, colour or reflectivity.

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